Left in the Dark

“Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and to keep the LORD’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?” Deuteronomy 10:12-13

Require – What is life’s most important question?  It’s not a question about what I should do, what is my destiny or who I should marry.  It’s not even, “Is there are God?”  All those questions are secondary.  The most important question is, “What does God demand of me.”  Yes, this question is even more critical than a question about God’s existence because even if I prove to myself that God does exist, that makes very little difference until I ask, “What does God demand of me?”

Religions that are consumed with the existence of God miss the point.  Until I know what God demands of me, I am left in the dark no matter how many theoretical questions I can answer.  On the other hand, unless God tells me what He desires, I am still in the dark even after I recognize the real question.  My attempts to meet His demands mean nothing unless He tells me what those demands are.  These are things I just can’t make up on my own.  Religions that offer man-made solutions to this vital question are worthless.  That’s why Moses must address this question as straightforwardly as possible.

Many religions offer answers to the question.  Only YHWH provides an answer that is humanly possible.  “Man is told what God desires of him.  The impulse to draw near to God is freed from creaturely paralysis and referred to the norm of the command as an expression of divine will.”[1] Only YHWH expresses His will within the context of the living human community.  Buddha asks us to relinquish desire and stop being human (and Buddha isn’t even God).  Shiva, Kama, Vishwakarma and Indra all have their own demands but they are only aspects of Brahman (which ones do you follow?).  Allah makes a lot of demands some of which are incompatible with life on this planet.  But Islam isn’t really interested in life on this planet.  YHWH is.

The Hebrew verb sha’al (to ask) isn’t even a particularly religious term.  It’s just the ordinary verb used for making a request.  The translation “require” might even be too strong.  There is a sense, of course, in which God’s request carries much more weight than my request, but we cannot forget that God’s requests are “for our good” and, consequently, eminently reasonable.  Who wouldn’t want to do something for his own good?  Allah might demand that I do things that are not for my good, like committing religious suicide, but this isn’t YHWH’s way.  His requests bring shalom to me and to my community.

Most importantly, YHWH’s requests eradicate my spiritual paralysis.  Left in the dark, I would have no clue as to the proper behavior before the Creator.  But once He tells me, I am able to do something about His request.  I know what it means to serve Him because He has spelled it out for me.  Now the question is never “What?”  Now the question is “Why don’t I?”  Now my life is reduced to a matter of will, not of knowledge.

Hebrew theology overcomes one other major factor in spiritual paralysis.  If God demanded my obedience to a list of actions that I was perfectly capable of doing, and then punished me for failing to do them, I would still be left in the dark.  My failures would sentence me to knowing why, but I would still have no way out.  Grace makes obedience possible!  In Hebrew thought, I can always start again.  I can stop choosing my own way and start doing what God asks of me.  My sin does not paralyze me because God gives grace.

So, what are we waiting for?  There is no spiritual straightjacket.  Just do it!

Topical Index:  paralysis, request, ask, sha’al, Deuteronomy 10:12-13